Tea Factory and Nuwara Eliya

A tea plantation.

Glenlock Tea Plantation and Factory.

Our tea guide.

Drying the tea leaves.

Taking it to the crushers.

Part of the long and winding road.

Beautiful and lush.

Terraced vegetable farms.

Rural housing.

Tea pickers off to work presumably.

Dried fish in the market....

and fresh beef.

Friday, February 9^th.

We boarded the van at 8:30 this morning for our drive up into the central highlands. It took a while to get out of Kandy as the traffic there is very congested, but finally we got out of the city and onto the country road. After about an hour we started to climb. The road was full of curves and switchbacks as we gained elevation. Going is slow because of the traffic and the truck and buses that struggle up the hills.

We stopped at the Glenlock tea plantation and factory. This factory has been in business since 1867 and still uses the old British machinery from the colonial days. We had a tour there of the process of drying the leaves, crushing them and sorting them into the varieties. I learned that black, white and green tea all come from the same plant, just different leaves. I also learned that 100 kg of picked leaves weighs half as much when dried. Then we had a sampling of English Breakfast, white and something they called the Golden Flush with a piece of chocolate sponge cake. All were quite good.

Then we continued on our drive, stopping at a couple of scenic overlooks including a waterfall. We arrived at Nuwara Eliya and the Windsor Hotel about 1:00. This town is known as little England because the British liked it for its cooler climate (due to altitude). They built a golf course here. We all went for lunch to a dingy local restaurant and had either rice and vegetable curry or rice and chicken curry.

After that we broke up and used the afternoon to explore the town. John and I bought a couple of snacks for tomorrow’s hike and checked out the town. We found a local market that ran behind the main street shops. It smelled pretty bad because of the stalls of dried fish (from the coast) and unrefrigerated meat. These markets are always interesting to wander through. Then we headed back to the hotel to sort out a few things.

We met up with group and went out to a posh restaurant in the Little England district, called Grand Indian, Grand Hotel, established in1891. We had an excellent Indian meal and John, Michael and I had fun sitting with Sam. He is another in a long series of excellent guides. Back to the Windsor by nine, as we have an early start tomorrow.